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Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies

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'Had They Been Polite and Civilized, None of This Would Have Happened':
Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima
Tanya Golash-Boza

Online publication date: 20 November 2010

To cite this Article Golash-Boza, Tanya(2010) ''Had They Been Polite and Civilized, None of This Would Have Happened':
Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima', Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 5: 3, 317 — 330
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 Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
Vol. 5, No. 3, November 2010, pp. 317–330

‘Had They Been Polite and Civilized,

None of This Would Have Happened’:
Discourses of Race and Racism in
Multicultural Lima
Tanya Golash-Boza
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In 2006, the Peruvian government passed a law that made racial discrimination a crime
punishable by incarceration. This law, part of a multicultural reform in Peru, can be
seen as an effective recognition of the reality of racism in Peruvian society. Such
recognition, however, contrasts with official depictions of Peru as a country without
racism, and of Peruvians as people who deny the existence of racism in their society.
Based on semi-structured interviews conducted in Lima, this note explores everyday
discourses on this issue. The findings show that Limeños recognize racism as a societal
problem, but they adhere to a restrictive definition of racism and use rhetorical strategies
that allow them to portray themselves as not racist. Their expressions of distaste for
people of color demonstrate that racism persists in interpersonal discourses because of
deeply embedded ideas about the inferiority of blacks and Indians.

Keywords: Racism; Peru; sociology; race; multicultural reforms

I don’t have anything against people of color. . . We are all the same . . .
People of color here in Peru can be characterized as delinquents, as gang
members . . . The majority of people of color here are . . . bad people . . . criminals; they
are in jail.
(Fernanda,1 40-year-old woman, Lima)

Fernanda, a dark-skinned mestiza2 artisan who has lived in Lima, Peru her entire life,
told me that racism is prevalent in Lima and that she deplored racism, calling it a
‘spiritual sickness.’ Despite her dislike of racism and her insistence that she is not
racist, she unequivocally told me that most people of color3 are criminals. In this
research note, I explore how Fernanda and other Limeños4 are able to maintain such
contradictory positions – denouncing racism while expressing racist viewpoints.
Understanding how people talk about racism in Peru is of particular importance
at this juncture, as the Peruvian government is in the process of implementing
reforms aimed at increasing multicultural tolerance and combating widespread
racism. These 21st-century reforms are in some ways a continuation of changes made
ISSN 1744–2222 (print)/ISSN 1744–2230 (online)/10/030317–14 ß 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17442222.2010.519907
 318 T. Golash-Boza
during the 1990s, yet are distinct in so far as these new reforms involve a more
explicit discussion of racism. It is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the
position that racism is foreign to Peru, that it is hidden, or that it does not form part
of public discourse – stances long held by Peruvianists.
The Peruvian government passed an anti-discrimination law (Ley 28867) in 2006.
This law makes racial discrimination a criminal act, punishable by incarceration.
The passage of this law reveals that legislators recognize the widespread nature
of racism in Peru and renders it evident that race talk has made its way into national
political debates. In 2000, Peru accepted a five-million-dollar loan from the World
Bank to implement multicultural reforms in Peru. The acceptance of this loan
implies the recognition of the special needs of indigenous and Afro-Peruvian
populations, and thus a denial of the idea that race does not matter in Peru.
The Peruvian media also has made public several cases of discrimination, breaking
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their relative silence on the issue. The most prominent recent example of this is that
several nightclubs in Cuzco and Lima faced fines in 2006 after denying entry to
people on the basis of their physical appearance. The television networks covered
these events extensively, bringing discriminatory practices to the fore in public
debates. In another example, on 27 November 2006, two indigenous Peruvian
congresswomen, Maria Sumire and Hilaria Supa, arrived at the airport just before
7:30 pm for an 8:55 pm flight. They were told that the flight had been overbooked,
and that they would not be able to board. The Congresswomen, indignant they were
not going to be able to travel that evening, showed the airline worker their diplomatic
passports and demanded they be able to board the flight. The worker responded
that they might be congresswomen, but that they cannot even speak Spanish properly
and thus needed to take their complaints elsewhere. This event and the subsequent
charges of discrimination were widely publicized in the Peruvian televised and print
media.
This public discussion of discrimination raises the question of how this debate is
affecting how Limeños are talking about racism today. In this research note, I explain
that Limeños talk about and deplore racism as a societal problem, yet adhere to a
restrictive definition of racism that allows them to see themselves as not racist.
I argue that Limeños decry racism while expressing racist viewpoints using four
strategies: claiming they are not racist because they have a multiracial family;
claiming they are not racist because they have a multiracial circle of friends; insisting
that propagating negative cultural stereotypes about blacks and Indians is not racist,
but a description of reality; and defining racism as individual acts of bigotry in which
they do not engage.

What does Racism Look Like in Peru?5

Scholarly writings about racism in Peru in the 1990s share three themes. First, most
authors posit that racism is hidden or disguised (solapado). Second, they argue that
Peruvians see racism as foreign to their country, as Peru does not have a history of
legal segregation. Third, they contend that, in Peru, there is an official discourse
about the absence of racism in the country. These three themes combine to create a
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 319

complex set of explanations for the perceived lack of discourses on racism in Peru.
If racism is foreign, then there would be none in Peru, and the racism that does
exist would be hidden (Callirgos, 1993; Oboler, 1996, 2005;6 León, 1998;
Portocarrero, 1993). Suzanne Oboler claims that racism in Lima is:
understood in terms of interpersonal prejudices that warrant individual solutions by
those whom it affects, freeing the larger national community from the burden and
hence the task of addressing the problem of racism in the society. Consequently, the
racial question is virtually absent from political debates.
(Oboler, 2005, p. 89)

According to this view, politicians do not address the problem of racism in society
because racism is a problem of interpersonal prejudice, and not something to which
the state should or could respond. Further, absence of discussions of racism in
public debates means that racism remains hidden in Peruvian society (León, 1998;
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Portocarrero, 1993; Oboler, 2005).

Peruvian scholars also often argue that racial discrimination is seen by many
Peruvians as something foreign to Peru, frequently by comparing Peru with the USA
and with South Africa, where racism has been part of public policy (Callirgos, 1993).
Suzanne Oboler (1996, 2005) and Gonzalo Portocarrero (1993) found in their
research in the 1990s that many Peruvians see racism as foreign. In addition, these
scholars contend that racism is not discussed by public officials. However, today,
discussions of racism are common themes in the public arena. How have these
changes in public and official discourses on race and racism affected how Peruvians
talk about race today?

A Few Words on Collecting the Data

To understand how Peruvians are talking about racism today, I conducted
30 interviews in Lima, between May and July 2007. My sample included people
from varying social strata, of different genders, and of a range of phenotypes.7 I drew
from a wide variety of contacts in Lima to create my snowball sample. I used one
contact at the Catholic University, one in the working-class neighborhood of Comas,
and another in the bohemian neighborhood of Barranco. These in turn led to
contacts in the upscale neighborhood of Monterrico and in two working-class
outlying suburbs. My 30 interviewees varied quite a bit in terms of social standing,
from students at the Catholic University to upper-middle-class professionals
to working-class people to single mothers to government workers and artists.
My interviewees were evenly divided between men and women. The average age was
34; the oldest was 67, and the youngest 19. Table 1 presents demographic details on
my interviewees. Note that the university students all studied at the Catholic
University, and were of varying class backgrounds.
The interviews, which lasted from 30 to 90 minutes, were conducted in Spanish
and focused specifically on how Limeños talk about racism.8 My research assistant
transcribed all of the interviews and I translated the excerpts presented in the text.
In the interviews, I asked respondents general questions about whether or not racial
 320 T. Golash-Boza
Table 1 Interviewees.

Name Gender Age (years) Class

Luis Male 67 Government worker

Mario Male 52 Government worker
Angela Female 34 Professional
Jorge Male 35 Professional
José Manuel Male 42 Professional
Rumi Male 26 Professional
Andrés Male 21 University student
Cindi Female 20 University student
Franco Male 29 University student
Juan Carlos Male 24 University student
Laura Female 20 University student
Lucia Female 22 University student
Paulo Male 20 University student
Rafael Male 21 University student
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Victoria Female 20 University student

Violeta Female 22 University student
Cynthia Female 34 University student
Fabiana Female 54 Upper middle
Mary Female 39 Upper middle
Pablo Male 45 Upper middle
Sarita Female 30 Upper middle
Alfredo Male 42 Working class
Fernanda Female 49 Working class
José Male 27 Working class
Katya Female 40 Working class
Luna Female 40 Working class
Marcelo Male 47 Working class
Maribel Female 41 Working class
Pedro Male 26 Working class
Soledad Female 19 Working class

discrimination is a problem in Peru and how they would define racism. Later in the
interview, I focused on personal prejudices by asking questions such as how they
would feel if their son or daughter was romantically involved with a black or
indigenous person. These questions provide insight into how Peruvians are talking
about racial and ethnic differences and discrimination today. This analysis provides
a context in which we can examine how contemporary discourses of difference affect
racial discourses in Peru.

Cultural Racism in Lima, Peru

Many of my interviewees believed that holding culturally racist beliefs about blacks
and Indians is not racist. In this section, I discuss the roots of cultural racism in Peru
and the extent to which it continues to be widespread today.

The Acceptability of Cultural Racism

In Peru, cultural frames were the primary means by which racial inequality was
justified throughout the 20th century. Nelson Manrique (1999) argues that racism
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 321

in Peru naturalizes the inequalities produced by the Conquest that persist to this day.
A recent report by anti-racist organizations in Lima outlines several dimensions
in which black and indigenous people continue to be disadvantaged, including
education, health, and access to basic amenities (CNDDHH et al. 2009). The elite
have consistently explained the subordinate status of Indians by pointing to their
supposed refusal to assimilate (de la Cadena, 2000). And the economic subordination
of black Peruvians has been explained as an outcome of their unfamiliarity with
capitalist enterprise (Cuche, 1975). These cultural arguments continue to be used in
the contemporary era, despite the legal and moral impermissibility of racism.
In Limeño discourse, the presumed cultural superiority of costeños (coastal people)
and of criollo culture often goes unchallenged, and many Limeños do not sugarcoat
their opinions with regard to the cultural inferiority of blacks or Indians. When a
Limeño says that ‘Indians are dirty’, she often does not see this as a racist statement,
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but as a statement of fact. For many Limeños, until Indians get civilized and become
mestizos, they are dirty: they urinate in public, they throw their dishwater into
the street, and they do not wash their polleras (skirts). For many mestizos in Lima, the
cultural inferiority of Indians is so evident that pointing it out is hardly racist.
Although a white person does not have to prove that he or she is not dirty, a person
who appears to be indigenous often has to assure potential employers or friends that
he or she is not in fact an Indian, but a civilized mestizo. This parallels the historical
discourse of assimilation, which asserts that education and modernization can
‘whiten’ Indians but that whites do not require the same processes to be considered
white (de la Cadena, 2000).

Prevalence of Cultural Racism

In the Peruvian racial hierarchy, whiteness is privileged, and indigeneity and
blackness are devalued. As indigeneity and blackness are defined culturally,
indigenous and black culture also are held in low esteem. The extent to which
cultural racism is embedded in Limeño discourse is evident in the writings of
Peruvian anthropologist, Alejandro Ortiz. In a newspaper segment on racism in Peru,
Ortiz argued that racism is an Anglicism and has no applicability in Peru. He posited
that racism does not exist in Peru because, unlike in the USA, skin color is not the
primary characteristic by which people are judged. As an example, he pointed out
that a person can ‘nacer indio pero algunos méritos económicos o culturales pueden
realizar el milagro de ‘‘blanquear’’ a las personas’ (‘be born Indian, but certain
economic or cultural merits can produce the miracle of ‘whitening’ the person’)
(Ortiz, 1999). What Ortiz failed to mention is that Indians require certain ‘merits’ to
become white, whereas people who are born white remain that way, regardless
of their worthiness. His comments, which appeared in the prestigious Limeño
newspaper, El Comercio, on 29 August 1999, are indicative of the extent to which
cultural racism is embedded in Limeño discourses.
Ortiz’s comments point to the widespread sentiment that Indians are culturally
deficient. For Ortiz, this idea is not racist; he simply is drawing our attention to the
cultural merits that Indians lack. Moreover, for him, Peru is not racist since Indians
 322 T. Golash-Boza
have the option of cultural improvement. If they choose not to take advantage of the
option of cultural improvement, then they have only themselves to blame for their
low position on the social hierarchy. These sentiments were strongly reflected in my
interviews with Limeños, particularly with regard to Indians.

Denigration of Indians and Cholos9

Many of my interviewees spoke of Indians as having ‘un bajo nivel cultural’ (‘a low
cultural level’). For example, when I asked José Manuel, a light-skinned professional,
how he would feel if his daughter decided to marry an indigenous man,
he responded:
Look, blacks . . . want to live well, want to live clean, want to have a house that is decent.
It’s like you can civilize them quickly . . . They want to be civilized, something like that; I
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am thinking of slavery . . . But the Indians, the cholos, it’s like they always keep on living
dirty, living badly.
José Manuel went on to say that if you teach a cholo to be clean, he will have trouble
with his family, because they are unclean. They will say:
Look, eating with your hands is good, you can enjoy your food . . . eating with your dirty
hands and eating again and leaving them dirty and cleaning your face and running
your fingers through your hair and cleaning them with your clothes . . . Well, if my
daughter falls in love with a person like that, I would tell her, ‘daughter, you have a lot
of work’.

Mary, a fair-skinned woman from an upper-class family, echoed this idea that
indigenous people need to be civilized. She said that if an indigenous family moved
in next to her, she would be fine with it, because she would ‘enseñarles algunas cosas,
de repente le veo algo malo, aconsejarles’ (‘teach them some things, perhaps I would
see something wrong, and I would give them advice’). These are indicative of the
widespread idea that criollo culture is superior to indigenous culture.
When I asked Luna, a brown-skinned artisan who considers herself mestiza,
how she would feel if an indigenous family moved in next door to her, she said she
would not like it because indigenous people are dirty: ‘They are dirty, yes, they are
not very urban . . . They are of a low level, they spit on the floor’. She also apparently
has passed these ideas on to her daughter; Soledad, who is 19 years old and the color
of cinnamon, said that her mother would not like it if she married an indigenous
man, because ‘they don’t have much culture’.
An additional component of the racial discourse that emphasizes cultural
inadequacy is the assertion of the inherent inferiority of the way indigenous
people talk. Angela, a fair-skinned young dentist, told me that when a white-skinned
person from the Andes is in Lima, people will say, ‘mira al blanco, pero que no hable’
(‘Look at that white man, but don’t let him talk’) or ‘habló y la mató’ (‘he spoke and
that was the end of it’), meaning it is commonly accepted that having a mountain
accent is indicative of cultural inferiority. Pablo, an upper-middle-class artisan,
when referring to the indigenous congresswomen, called them ‘mal habladas’
(literally ‘badly spoken’), due to their accent in Spanish. Echoing this, Mario,
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 323

a mestizo student at the Catholic University, said that perhaps the congresswomen
‘do not speak Spanish as well as the coastal people do’. Rumi, a mestizo recent college
graduate said that the way one of his professors talks is ‘chistoso’ (funny) because he
has a Cuzqueño accent. (Cuzco is in the Andes mountains, an indigenous region.)
In everyday encounters in Lima, it is common to hear people make fun of
serranos’ (indigenous people from the highlands) accents. In November 2006, I was
in a cab with some friends who are involved in an Afro-Peruvian social movement,
and they were imitating the way serranos talk and making fun at how they say
‘intonces’ instead of ‘entonces’. The fact that these people, who are avid anti-racists,
were willing to make these sorts of jokes is indicative of the widespread acceptance
of ridiculing linguistic differences. In Peru, linguistic differences are racialized in so
far as speaking Spanish with a criollo accent is associated with the (white/mestizo)
coast, whereas speaking an indigenous language or Spanish with an indigenous
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accent is associated with the (indigenous) mountain or the (native) Amazonian

region.
When a black or an indigenous person is able to improve their situation, they
are often seen as arrogant. For example, Fabiana, a fair-skinned upper-class woman,
told me that ‘when they [blacks or Indians] have status, when they ascend [socially],
they think they are all that’. Another interviewee, Fernanda, a brown-skinned mestiza
artisan, said that ‘people of color sometimes, it’s like they want to get ahead of
themselves’. When I asked Pablo about the situation with the two congresswomen
who had been denied entry into the airplane, he told me what he imagined must have
happened. He explained that the two congresswomen probably arrived at the airport,
speaking with their serrano accents, claiming to be congresswomen, and insulted the
ticket agent, who was probably white. Because of the arrogance of the congress-
women, and the fact that they surely insulted the white ticket agent, the ticket agent
returned the insult. According to Pablo, ‘had they been polite and civilized, none
of this would have happened’.
I also asked Pablo if he thought that employers preferred whites in general for
employment, and he responded that employers prefer cholos for hard work and
whites for public relations. Pablo explained:
If we are talking about office work, this cholo is not going to be able to do anything,
because this cholo, what he is going to need are his hands, his aggression, and his
strength to hit something. The other, no, he only needs his intelligence.
In Peru, the reality is that Indians are more likely to be in positions that involve
physical labor whereas whites are more likely to be in service-sector and professional
positions. Pablo’s differentiation of whites from Indians in this way can serve as a
justification for this manifestation of racial inequality, continuing a trend that has
roots in the Conquest (Manrique, 1999).

Negro ¼ Delincuente
My interviewees also were quite open about expressing cultural stereotypes with
regard to blacks. Historically, blacks and whites have lived in close proximity to one
another, and blacks are not seen as culturally distinct from white criollos in the same
 324 T. Golash-Boza
way as Indians (Romero, 1994; Golash-Boza, 2008). There are, nevertheless, certain
stereotypes associated with blacks, including implications that they are criminally
inclined and lazy. These stereotypes came to light in my interviews.
When I asked Cynthia, a mestiza student, if she thought that blacks face
discrimination on a regular basis she said that they might, but that they can easily
defend themselves, since ‘las personas negras tienen relaciones con delincuencia’ (‘blacks
have friends that are criminals’). Fernanda also told me, with regard to blacks:
People of color here in Peru can be characterized as delinquents, as gang members,
because, generally, it is a marginalized race . . . The majority of people of color here
are . . . bad people; they live in poor neighborhoods and are criminals as well; they are
in jail.
These stereotypes also can be seen in common jokes. For example, a popular joke
claims that if a white person is out running, he or she is jogging, but a black person
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who is out running is probably a thief.

My interviewees frequently described blacks as unintelligent and unlikely to be
professionals. Fernanda, a brown-skinned mestiza artisan, said that a large percentage
of blacks are soccer players, singers, musicians, and writers, and the rest are mostly
criminals. Luna, also a brown-skinned mestiza artisan, told me that blacks are
generally not very intelligent, are usually poor, and are not professionals. Maribel,
a dark-skinned housewife in a working-class household, said that, although color is
not important in terms of selecting someone for a job, intelligence is, and not very
many blacks study at the university. This is because they prefer to do other things,
like play sports, sing, and cook.
Through a plethora of widely accepted stereotypes, the assumed cultural and
intellectual inferiority of blacks and Indians is used to justify their low position in the
social hierarchy. In this sense, not much has changed over the course of Peruvian
history. The way in which Limeños unabashedly express cultural racism is indicative
of the extent to which the presumed inferiority of blacks and Indians is taken as
simply factual for many Limeños. This also differentiates Lima from the USA, where
people are less likely to be so forthcoming with their expressions of cultural racism
(Bonilla-Silva, 2006). My interviewees unapologetically described Indians and blacks
as culturally deficient as if their ideas were facts instead of opinions. For them, the
assertion of these ‘facts’ is not racist; it is just how things are.

Rhetorical Devices Used to Justify Racism10

In addition to defining cultural racism as not racism, my interviewees defined
themselves as not racist through the use of a variety of rhetorical strategies such as
‘Some of my best friends are black’ and ‘My grandmother is black’. I discuss these
strategies in this section.

Some of My Best Friends are Black (or Indian)

One of my interviewees, Pablo, frequently denigrated blacks and Indians, yet insisted
that he was not a racist. One way he claimed his status as a non-racist was by pointing
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 325

out that he has black and Indian friends. An artisan from an upper-middle-class
family, Pablo would be seen as white in Peru based on his family background and
his physical appearance. Pablo often expressed overtly racist views in my presence.
For example, the people in the town where he lives in the outskirts of Lima were
organizing a party for their patron saint. I asked Pablo and his wife if they planned to
attend this event. Pablo mentioned that he has some qualms with the people in town,
related to a disagreement he had with them over a canal. When Pablo described the
dispute, he referred to the townspeople as ‘indios de mierda and cholos de mierda’.11
He said that one day 20 indios showed up at his house to complain about him having
blocked off the water canal. In Pablo’s description of this event, his disgust for the
townspeople was evident. On another occasion when I was at Pablo’s house, a young
indigenous woman came to ask for something. When Pablo spoke with her, he
treated her as one might treat a dog. He yelled at her, and talked to her as if she was
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unable to understand basic sentences and questions. When I asked Pablo why he
talked to her that way, he explained to me that cholos have no culture, that cholos
are worthless, and that they are so brutish that this is the only way one could relate to
them. He explained that what happens is that cholos are fine so long as they stay
in the mountains, but when they come to Lima, they continue with their country
ways, and that this is unacceptable in Lima. This is reminiscent of early 20th-century
ideas that the rightful place of Peruvian Indians is in the Andes, and that moving
to the city only corrupts them (de la Cadena, 2000; Varallanos, 1962).
Pablo does not restrict his racist opinions to Indians. One afternoon, he was
showing pictures of his daughter and granddaughter to a friend. His daughter lives
in the States and has married an African-American. He told his friends that he was
practicing to be able to communicate with his son-in-law and began to make primate
noises.
Despite his disparaging statements about blacks and Indians, Pablo does not see
himself as a racist. Pablo compared himself with family members who do not
associate with blacks or Indians, calling them ‘a little racist’. His mother and her
sisters would have nothing at all to do with anyone who was not white. In contrast,
Pablo told me that he does not care in the least bit what color someone’s skin is,
be it brown, white, black, green, pink. For him, this means he holds higher moral
ground than his family members, and thus is not racist.
Pablo is currently married to a European woman, but the mother of his oldest
daughter is, as he put it, ‘cholita, peruana’. In his eyes, he is not a racist like other
members of his family because he is willing to have relationships with people who are
not white and not wealthy. In addition to his former partner, Pablo has many artisan
friends who are of indigenous or African descent. Thus, Pablo can see himself as not
being racist because of his multi-ethnic circle of friends, in comparison with his
mother, who only would consort with white Peruvians (and mostly with Peruvians of
German or English extraction). Since Pablo defines racism as ‘not dealing with blacks
and Indians’, he can claim not to be a racist.
Fernanda is another person who displays similar contradictions, and is from a very
different background from Pablo. Fernanda is from a working-class background;
her parents migrated from the Andes, but she was born in Lima. Her facial features
 326 T. Golash-Boza
and skin color strongly reflect her parents’ highland origins. Fernanda’s opinions
about blacks were very negative; she saw them as mostly delinquents. Nevertheless,
Fernanda has some close friends who are blacks and does not see herself as racist.
As mentioned earlier, Fernanda expressed many negative stereotypes of blacks.
At the same time, when I asked her about being romantically involved with a black
person, she responded:
I don’t have anything against people of color . . . For us, there is no racism . . . We are all
the same.

She also said later, ‘yo tengo mis amigas de color, . . . no hay problema’ (‘I have my
black friends, . . . there is no problem’). Fernanda insisted that she is not a racist,
and offered proof of this by pointing out that she has black friends, asserting that
‘we are all the same’. In Fernanda’s case, she holds stereotypes about blacks,
but recognizes that there can be exceptions. Some blacks, like her friends, are not
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criminals or lazy.
Both Fernanda and Pablo used the fact that they have non-white friends as
evidence that they are not racist. Notably, both Fernanda and Pablo do in fact have
friends that consider themselves to be black and Indian. On one occasion when I was
at Pablo’s house, he had a few musician friends over for a jam session, and many
of them were not white. Another friend of his who self-identifies as Indian came to
visit from the USA – indicating a long-term relationship. As for Fernanda, I have
seen her on many occasions with her friend Perla – a woman who identifies as black.
Both Pablo and Fernando thus have multiracial circles of friends, despite their
negative views of blacks and Indians. In a similar fashion, most of my interviews
had non-white ancestors, and many invoked them as a strategy to define themselves
as not racist.

Mi abuela es negra (My Grandmother is Black)

Nearly all of my interviewees (29 out of 30) claimed to have some ancestry that was
not European. The exception was Franco, a white law student from an upper-class
family. His four grandparents had come to Peru from Italy. Because of the recent
migration of his family to Peru, he could be sure that he did not have any non-
Europeans among his ancestors. Other Peruvians, even if they considered themselves
to be white, thought they might have indigenous or African ancestors. Fabiana, for
example, did not initially name a specific relative, but invoked the popular Peruvian
saying – quien no tiene de inga, tiene de mandinga (‘he who does not have Indian
[ancestry], has African’), when I asked her if she had African ancestry. Later, she told
me that her grandmother had been a chola (Indian). Although nearly all of my
interviewees claimed a black or Indian grandmother, only some of them used this
relative in a rhetorical strategy to claim not to be racist.
José Manuel, a fair-skinned young man from the middle class, for example,
first told me that he was half-black and half-white, and that he had indigenous
ancestry as well. Then, he told me that most Peruvians are mixed as well, but are not
willing to admit it. Since he sees himself as one of the few members of his family
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 327

that is willing to talk about the non-white side of his family, he can consider himself
not to be racist in that respect. This, of course, only works in so far as one’s definition
of racism is limited to biological racism. According to José Manuel, his willingness
to admit that his grandmother was black shows that he does not believe that biology
is destiny, and that he is not racist. He, after all, does not mind associating
with blacks and Indians who, like him, are ‘cleaned up’ and ‘civilized’. For José
Manuel, then, having a black grandmother, being willing to discuss her, and
being disposed to give cholos and blacks a chance to prove they are civilized means
that he is not racist.
When I asked Jorge, a brown-skinned, middle-class, young dentist, how his father
would feel if he married a black woman, he said to me, ‘mi abuela es negra, problema
de racismo no tengo’ (‘my grandmother is black, I don’t have any racial problems’).
However, when I asked him how he would feel if his daughter married a black
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person, he said: ‘I would have a bit of a hard time with it but I wouldn’t prevent them
from getting married’. Jorge clearly would prefer that his daughter marry a white
man, yet does not see himself as racist. His rationale is that he simply wants the best
for his children. Notably, he invokes his black grandmother as proof that he could
not be a racist. This rhetorical strategy is generally not found in the USA, primarily
because black or indigenous ancestry renders a person in the USA non-white,
whereas in Peru this is not the case.

Defining Racism as Individual Acts of Bigotry

The final way that my interviewees were able to define themselves as not racist was by
defining racism as individual acts of bigotry. When I asked my Limeño interviewees
to give an example of racism, the majority pointed to the cases of nightclubs not
allowing blacks or Indians to enter. They recounted that this had happened to them
or to a friend, that they had heard about this happening, or that they had seen reports
on television or in newspapers. As none of my interviewees were nightclub bouncers,
they could deflect the racism onto those gatekeepers.
The next most prominent definition of racism was name-calling. Many of my
interviewees defined racism as calling people ‘cholo de mierda’. Others defined it as
using labels such as cholo or negro. Cindi, for example, told me that: ‘It seems super
ridiculous to me that people go around saying, ‘‘look at that mestizo, look at that
negro, look at that cholo’’’. When I asked Fernanda, a brown-skinned, working-class
woman, about racism, she said that blacks discriminate against Indians and vice versa.
‘Empiezan a cholear, que cholos de ‘‘M[ierda]’’ . . . negro cocodrilo . . . negro mono’
(‘They start to call people cholo, cholo piece of shit, crocodile black . . . black
monkey’). And, Rumi pointed out that when a cholo or a negro does something that
someone does not like, they will say ‘cholo tenı´a que ser’ or ‘negro tenı´a que ser’
(‘It had to be a cholo [or a black]’). Many Limeños define racism is the act of calling
someone a cholo or a negro, especially if it is done in a denigrating fashion. Thus,
those who watch their mouths and avoid using derogatory language can consider
themselves to not be racist.
 328 T. Golash-Boza
Discussion and Conclusion
My snowball sample of 30 Limeños provides insight into how racism works in
contemporary Lima. One way this is evident is in the fact that, in my diverse sample,
there were certain themes that arose in nearly every interview. All but one of my
30 interviewees decisively declared that racism is prevalent in Lima, and then
proceeded to explain how they, personally, were not racist. Their explanations for
why they are not racist also were markedly similar. All but one pointed to non-white
members of their family. And, the vast majority mentioned non-white friends
of theirs. Only one interviewee expressed personal disapproval of her son marrying
a black woman; the remainder approved, albeit with some reservations. And, every
single one of my interviewees expounded views of blacks and/or Indians that could be
labeled cultural racism.
In my interviews, derogatory references to blacks and Indians were commonplace.
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All of my interviewees, both male and female, middle and working class, dark and
light-skinned, had something negative to say about blacks and/or Indians. In so far as
these denigrating statements referred to cultural inferiority, my interviewees did not
see them as racist. In addition, my interviewees deplored racism and used rhetorical
strategies such as my friends and/or grandmother is black or Indian to demonstrate
that they are not racist.
Despite expressing racist ideas, my interviewees avoided the stigma of being labeled
as racist in four ways: claiming a multiracial family; claiming a multiracial circle of
friends; insisting that holding culturally racist beliefs about blacks and Indians is not
racist, but just a description of the reality; and defining racism as individual acts
of bigotry.
Unlike in the 1990s, racism is commonly discussed in public and legislative arenas
in Peru. These discussions have reinforced the legal and moral impermissibility of
racism. This public disparagement of racism influenced my interviewees in so far as
they both recognized that racism is a problem in Peru and deplored racial prejudice
and discrimination. Racism in Peru is no longer hidden. This recognition of racism
as a Peruvian problem distinguishes 21st-century discourses on racism from those
of the 20th century. However, the recognition and disparagement of racism did not
lead my interviewees to develop tolerance towards people perceived to be black or
Indian.
This description of how racism works in Lima is not an exercise in hunting out
racists, but, instead, an exploration of how racist ideology works in Lima to sustain
structural and cultural racism. The explanations provided in this research note help
us to understand how a society like Peru can publicly denounce racism, implement
laws to make racism illegal, yet do remarkably little to change the extent to which
people of color are in a position of disadvantage and subject to derision.
In contemporary Lima, the media focus on racism has not worked to reduce
racism primarily because the media has defined racism as unsavory acts committed
by individual bigots. Media outlets have portrayed nightclub bouncers, guards at
private beaches, and airline attendants as the primary perpetrators of racism.
Whereas it is deplorable when a person is denied entry to a locale because of the color
 Discourses of Race and Racism in Multicultural Lima 329

of his skin, the vast majority of black and Indian Peruvians cannot afford entry into
these exclusive spots and thus never experience this sort of discrimination. They do,
however, confront a host of issues related to structural inequality and ingrained
cultural racism. The media attention on these individualized occurrences in elite
locales takes the focus off of the more ingrained dimensions of racial discourse.
Structural and cultural racism are, of course, much more difficult to uproot than
simply fining nightclubs or firing bouncers. However, if Peru hopes to be the
multicultural, tolerant nation that it portrays itself to be, steps in that direction are
necessary.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks the University of Kansas General Research Fund for funding
the research for this paper, and Christina Sue, Amanda Lewis, Michelle McKinley,
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Alice Julier, Joane Nagel, Ebenezer Obadare, and Jessica Vasquez for their helpful
critiques and suggestions.

Notes
[1] This name, along with all of the other names of interviewees used in this paper, is a
pseudonym.
[2] Mestizo is an identifier used to refer to a person who is either racially or culturally mixed.
A person of indigenous descent, for example, who has acculturated to the dominant culture
is a mestizo. A person who has both indigenous and Spanish ancestry is also a mestizo.
In Fernanda’s case, she is a person of primarily indigenous descent who has acculturated to
dominant culture in Peru. She neither speaks an indigenous language nor wears indigenous
clothes. Instead, she speaks Spanish and wears western clothes.
[3] My interviewees often used ‘gente de color’ (people of color) as a euphemism for black
people. I was taken aback by this term as I had not heard it before. Blacks in Peru were
referred to as ‘de color modesto’ in the 1950s (Ribeyro, 1994), so this may be a carry-over
from that. Or, it may be a direct translation of the US-based ‘people of color’. Probably, it is
a combination of both.
[4] Limeños refers to people born and raised in Lima, the capital of Peru.
[5] There are no official statistics on the racial composition of Peru, as race has not been
included in the Census since 1940. However, a reasonable estimate is that the population is
40 per cent mestizo; 40 per cent indigenous, and the remaining 20 per cent divided fairly
evenly between blacks, Asians, whites, and others.
[6] Although published in 2005, this piece is based on fieldwork done in the early 1990s.
[7] This research is supplemented by research I have done on racial issues in Peru since 2000,
including six months of interviewing Afro-Peruvians and ethnography in Lima in 2004.
[8] My role as an interviewer was one of an outsider. I have lived in Peru for several years and
am fluent in Peruvian Spanish. However, I am a white woman from the USA, and this was
evident to my interviewees. I was concerned that my outsider status would lead interviewees
to be less open with me. To the contrary, in the interviews, I found that people were
surprisingly candid with me both about their own views on race and the state of racial
inequality in Peru. In some cases, the advantage of being an outsider is that people feel
inclined to explain things more. As Mary Pattillo (1999) points out, as an insider, informants
presume you already know certain things and do not bother to explain them. I also expected
my interviewees to hold back on some of their ideas about racial inferiority to give off a good
impression of themselves (Goffman, 1959). However, as will become evident in this article,
 330 T. Golash-Boza
many of my interviewees expressed opinions that I found shocking. If they were engaging
in impression management, it was not evident to me. As an anti-racist scholar, it was at
times difficult for me to maintain good interview practices and not to express outrage at
their views.
[9] As Anibal Quijano (1980) has argued, cholos are people of indigenous descent who no longer
have close ties to highland indigenous communities. To put it simply, a cholo is an Indian
who moves to the city.
[10] This idea of ‘rhetorical devices’ is drawn from Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s extensive work
on how white Americans talk about racial differences and racism. Peruvians’ invocations
of these rhetorical devices are distinct, yet this is a useful theoretical tool for understanding
Limeños’ racial discourses.
[11] This translates roughly as ‘Indian piece of shit’.

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Tanya Golash-Boza is at the University of Kansas, Department of Sociology, 1415 Jayhawk

Boulevard, Room 716, Lawrence, KS, 66045, USA (Email: tgb@ku.edu).